Nashik: A 35-year-old bus driver was killed and six passengers were injured, two of them seriously, after a private luxury bus collided head-on with a container truck on Yeola-Nandgaon Road near Rajapur village in Nashik district on Tuesday morning.
Police identified the deceased as Ramleela Bhavarlal Meena (35), who was driving the bus. The luxury passenger bus was travelling from Madhya Pradesh towards Solapur when the accident occurred around 6.30am.
Meena has been named as the accused in the case as preliminary investigations indicate that he drove onto the wrong side of the road and crashed into the oncoming truck, according to inspector Kiran Shinde of Yeola taluka police station. Police said they rushed to the spot immediately after receiving information about the crash. Police said the accident site was located away from any major human settlement. “The road does not have a central divider, although there are no sharp bends or other apparent road conditions that could have contributed to the crash,” an officer said, adding that the driver might have either dozed off at the wheel or attempted to overtake another vehicle, causing the bus to veer into the opposite lane and collide with the truck.
By the time officers arrived, residents of Rajapur village had already begun rescuing passengers and shifting the injured out of the bus.